Stray
by WWSmith
Summary: "Give wings of song to your sadness, lest it forever strain in your heart for the ears of the White Watcher."


Stray

Nighteyes walked down the back ways of the city. It had been a hard winter – strange things coming from the sky, fires in the dark, screams in the night and all round a sense of dread and worry. They were having a difficult time of things, but that didn't mean Nighteyes or any other animal living rough felt sympathy. Everyone had it bad in Mudtown these days.

He padded along the alleys, nose to the ground in search of something to eat. He came to some garbage bins, always an option, but a risky one. It didn't matter – he was hungry enough to try. He tipped over a can and dug around the spilled contents. Almost at once, two humans came running out a building with angry shouts. The yelling he could have ignored, but the rocks and sticks were a different matter. Nighteyes ran.

Hours later, sunset found him cold, tired and still hungry. He wandered to a mostly disused passage, and found a surprise in it. Halfway down the alley, there was a tall blue box. Nighteyes approached and was amazed to discover it was warm. He had no idea how this could be, but heat was heat. He hunkered down next to it.

It snowed that night – fat flakes drifting down from the clouds. It was the sort of thing that was a mixed blessing for a stray. It was cold, but at least you heard people coming. Nighteyes leapt to his feet at the sound of footsteps.

_Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!_ He barked furiously. Things were bad enough. He was not about to let anything take away the only source of warmth he'd had in weeks.

"No." Said the man. "Mine. My box." Nighteyes was confused. Sometimes humans pretended to know what he said, but the man had been so specific.

_Mine!_ Nighteyes yelled again. _My warm! Mine, mine, mine!_ The man walked closer with his had outstretched. Nighteyes snarled.

"I'm sorry." The man said. "Really, I am. But this is my box and I need to get into it so I can go." Nighteyes snapped at the man's hand.

_No! Mine! I'll kill you and eat you and gnaw your bones!_ The man considered the dog.

"What do you want?"

_Mine! My warm! I'll kill you and take your meat!_ This was an empty threat. Not only did he lack the strength to kill a full grown human, but this man looked like it could out run him. Now that he considered it, there was something strange about the human. Nighteyes sniffed the air. Yes, there was something off about him.

"Figured it out have you? Let me give you a hint." All of a sudden, the man's smelled became more intense. Now Nighteyes could pick up details. The man was telling the truth – his scent was all over the box. Not only that, but the man was certainly nothing he had encountered in his life. Nighteyes was scared - the smells were so strange and wrong. "I am nothing you have ever seen." Nighteyes backed down, but still gave a snarl.

_Stay away from me._ The man pulled a sandwich out of the bag he was carrying and placed it between the dog and himself.

"You can have this if you like. Doesn't look like you've eaten in days." Wonderful smells of hot meat drifted into Nighteyes's nose. He shook himself. The meat might be poisoned, and even if it wasn't, the man would surely steal away the warm box as soon as Nighteyes moved. He snarled a warning again.

_Stay away from me._

"You're a smart dog," the man said. He turned and sat down on a crate lying against the other wall of the alley. "Anyone who gets mixed up with me gets hurt." Nighteyes didn't move, but shifted his attention to the emotions of the man. They too were strange. In another life, Nighteyes had lived among people and learned the unspoken language of their emotions better than the humans themselves. The man was trying to show "normal" but it was being overwhelmed by a mass of what Nighteyes could only label as "sad" and "alone". It was a combination of feeling he and his kind experienced as an all-consuming wave of darkness, unlike the humans who usually passed it off in time. But this man was not human and he was drowning in the tide.

Nighteyes decided to risk the box. He walked forward slowly, gave the sandwich a through sniffing, then gobbled it down in two bites. He sat down to wash face and paws. After a time, curiosity got the better of him.

_Who are you sad for?_ He asked. In his mind, "sad" and "alone" only resulted from losing family.

"Many people." The man said.

_Many?_ Nighteyes cocked his head. _If there are many, and you are sad, why do you not sing for them?_

The man turned to the dog with a sorrowful smile. "I am not like your kind."

_If you do not allow the sad to fly as song to the White Watcher, it will pull to go to her and pain you forever. If there are many, there is much singing to be done. Why do you keep not sing?_

"I can not sing. There is too much sad in me." Nighteyes stopped washing and eyed the man.

_Never?_

"Never." The man stood up. "If I started singing, I would never stop." The man touched the stunned dog on the forehead. A burst of knowledge raced across his mind. "Travel here when you are able. The people here will care for you." The man walked past Nighteyes and into the warm blue box. There were sounds and the man was gone – only a clear place in the snow marked that he had ever been there. Nighteyes threw back his head, took a breath and sang to the White Watcher of the cold and the wind and the loneliness and the man who could not cry lest he drown in tears.


End file.
